While most research addressing chronic pain is mostly based on Western, more educated, and more developed countries, a growing number of research is now focusing on indigenous populations that get less attention than they deserve. Not only can these research can add more knowledge to our understanding of pain, they can help formulate healthcare and government policies in serving these populations who had faced generations of discrimination and oftentimes poverty, which led to mistreatment and mistrust among modern healthcare.

To help clinicians and policymakers understand and solve these problems, some researchers — such as Dr. Ivan Lin, a physiotherapist and researcher at the University of Western Australia — are investigating the cultural and social factors that influence various indigenous cultures' perception of pain.

Recently, a reporter from NPR interviewed a health expert, Esther Gokhale, on why indigenous populations do not have much back pain compared to people in industrialized nations. Gokhale's answer is that people in indigenous cultures have a J-shape spine. (1)

“That S-shaped spine is actually not natural. It's a J-shaped spine that you want,” she stated. Other factors were mentioned that were supposed to contribute to the prevalence of back pain in the U.S., including sitting too much, weak “core muscles,” and having a sedentary lifestyle.

While most of the blame is placed on the structures of the body, current scientific evidence since the mid-20th century indicate that [sagittal] back curvature is not associated with back pain, particularly chronic low back pain — and back pain is quite prevalent among many indigenous populations.